University of Virginia Library

23. CHAPTER XXIII.

The Neversink had summered out her last Christmas on
the Equator; she was now destined to winter out the Fourth
of July not very far from the frigid latitudes of Cape Horn.

It is sometimes the custom in the American Navy to celebrate
this national holiday by doubling the allowance of spirits
to the men; that is, if the ship happen to be lying in harbor.
The effects of this patriotic plan may be easily imagined:
the whole ship is converted into a dram-shop; and the intoxicated
sailors reel about, on all three decks, singing, howling,
and fighting. This is the time that, owing to the relaxed discipline
of the ship, old and almost forgotten quarrels are revived,
under the stimulus of drink; and, fencing themselves up
between the guns—so as to be sure of a clear space with at
least three walls—the combatants, two and two, fight out
their hate, cribbed and cabined like soldiers dueling in a sentry-box.
In a word, scenes ensue which would not for a single
instant be tolerated by the officers upon any other occasion.
This is the time that the most venerable of quarter-gunners
and quarter-masters, together with the smallest apprentice
boys, and men never known to have been previously
intoxicated during the cruise—this is the time that they all
roll together in the same muddy trough of drunkenness.

In emulation of the potentates of the Middle Ages, some
Captains augment the din by authorizing a grand jail-delivery
of all the prisoners who, on that auspicious Fourth of the
month, may happen to be confined in the ship's prison—“the
brig.”

But from scenes like these the Neversink was happily delivered.

Besides that she was now approaching a most perilous
part of the ocean—which would have made it madness to
intoxicate the sailors—her complete destitution of grog, even
for ordinary consumption, was an obstacle altogether insuperable,
even had the Captain felt disposed to indulge his man-of-war's-men
by the most copious libations.

For several days previous to the advent of the holiday, frequent
conferences were held on the gun-deck touching the
melancholy prospects before the ship.

“Too bad—too bad!” cried a top-man. “Think of it,
shipmates—a Fourth of July without grog!”

“I'll hoist the Commodore's pennant at half-mast that day,”
sighed the signal-quarter-master.

“And I'll turn my best uniform jacket wrong side out, to
keep company with the pennant, old Ensign,” sympathetically
responded an after-guard's-man.

“Ay, do!” cried a forecastle-man. “I could almost pipe
my eye to think on't.”

“No grog on de day dat tried men's souls!” blubbered
Sunshine, the galley-cook.

“Who would be a Jankee now?” roared a Hollander of
the fore-top, more Dutch than sour-crout.

“Is this the riglar fruits of liberty?” touchingly inquired
an Irish waister of an old Spanish sheet-anchor-man.

You will generally observe that, of all Americans, your
foreign-born citizens are the most patriotic—especially toward
the Fourth of July.

But how could Captain Claret, the father of his crew,
behold the grief of his ocean children with indifference? He
could not. Three days before the anniversary—it still continuing
very pleasant weather for these latitudes—it was
publicly announced that free permission was given to the
sailors to get up any sort of theatricals they desired, wherewith
to honor the Fourth.

Now, some weeks prior to the Neversink's sailing from
home—nearly three years before the time here spoken of—

some of the seamen had clubbed together, and made up a
considerable purse, for the purpose of purchasing a theatrical
outfit; having in view to diversify the monotony of lying in
foreign harbors for weeks together, by an occasional display
on the boards—though if ever there was a continual theatre
in the world, playing by night and by day, and without intervals
between the acts, a man-of-war is that theatre, and
her planks are the boards indeed.

The sailors who originated this scheme had served in other
American frigates, where the privilege of having theatricals
was allowed to the crew. What was their chagrin, then,
when, upon making an application to the Captain, in a Peruvian
harbor, for permission to present the much-admired
drama of “The Ruffian Boy,” under the Captain's personal
patronage, that dignitary assured them that there were already
enough ruffian boys on board, without conjuring up
any more from the green-room.

The theatrical outfit, therefore, was stowed down in the
bottom of the sailors' bags, who little anticipated then that it
would ever be dragged out while Captain Claret had the sway.

But immediately upon the announcement that the embargo
was removed, vigorous preparations were at once commenced
to celebrate the Fourth with unwonted spirit. The
half-deck was set apart for the theatre, and the signal-quarter-master
was commanded to loan his flags to decorate it in the
most patriotic style.

As the stage-struck portion of the crew had frequently
during the cruise rehearsed portions of various plays, to while
away the tedium of the night-watches, they needed no long
time now to perfect themselves in their parts.

Accordingly, on the very next morning after the indulgence
had been granted by the Captain, the following written
placard, presenting a broadside of staring capitals, was found
tacked against the main-mast on the gun-deck. It was as
if a Drury-Lane bill had been posted upon the London Monument:

At the earnest entreaties of the seamen, Lemsford, the gun-deck
poet, had been prevailed upon to draw up this bill. And
upon this one occasion his literary abilities were far from being
underrated, even by the least intellectual person on board.
Nor must it be omitted that, before the bill was placarded,
Captain Claret, enacting the part of censor and grand chamberlain,
ran over a manuscript copy of “The Old Wagon
Paid Off,” to see whether it contained any thing calculated
to breed disaffection against lawful authority among the crew.
He objected to some parts, but in the end let them all pass.

The morning of The Fourth—most anxiously awaited—
dawned clear and fair. The breeze was steady; the air
bracing cold; and one and all the sailors anticipated a gleeful
afternoon. And thus was falsified the prophecies of certain
old growlers averse to theatricals, who had predicted a
gale of wind that would quash all the arrangements of the
green-room.

As the men whose regular turns, at the time of the performance,
would come round to be stationed in the tops, and
at the various halyards and running ropes about the spar-deck,
could not be permitted to partake in the celebration,
there accordingly ensued, during the morning, many amusing
scenes of tars who were anxious to procure substitutes at
their posts. Through the day, many anxious glances were
cast to windward; but the weather still promised fair.

At last the people were piped to dinner; two bells struck;
and soon after, all who could be spared from their stations
hurried to the half-deck. The capstan bars were placed on
shot-boxes, as at prayers on Sundays, furnishing seats for the
audience, while a low stage, rigged by the carpenter's gang,

was built at one end of the open space. The curtain was
composed of a large ensign, and the bulwarks round about
were draperied with the flags of all nations. The ten or
twelve members of the brass band were ranged in a row at
the foot of the stage, their polished instruments in their hands,
while the consequential Captain of the Band himself was elevated
upon a gun-carriage.

At three bells precisely a group of ward-room officers
emerged from the after-hatchway, and seated themselves upon
camp-stools, in a central position, with the stars and stripes
for a canopy. That was the royal box. The sailors looked
round for the Commodore; but neither Commodore nor Captain
honored the people with their presence.

At the call of a bugle the band struck up Hail Columbia,
the whole audience keeping time, as at Drury Lane, when
God Save the King is played after a great national victory.

At the discharge of a marine's musket the curtain rose, and
four sailors, in the picturesque garb of Maltese mariners, staggered
on the stage in a feigned state of intoxication. The
truthfulness of the representation was much heightened by the
roll of the ship.

“The Commodore,” “Old Luff,” “The Mayor,” and “Gin
and Sugar Sall,” were played to admiration, and received
great applause. But at the first appearance of that universal
favorite, Jack Chase, in the chivalric character of “Percy
Royal-Mast,” the whole audience simultaneously rose to their
feet, and greeted him with three hearty cheers, that almost
took the main-top-sail aback.

Matchless Jack, in full fig, bowed again and again, with
true quarter-deck grace and self-possession; and when five or
six untwisted strands of rope and bunches of oakum were
thrown to him, as substitutes for bouquets, he took them one by
one, and gallantly hung them from the buttons of his jacket.

“Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!—go on! go on!—stop hollering—hurrah!—go
on!—stop hollering—hurrah!” was now
heard on all sides, till at last, seeing no end to the enthusiasm

of his ardent admirers, Matchless Jack stepped forward, and,
with his lips moving in pantomime, plunged into the thick of
the part. Silence soon followed, but was fifty times broken
by uncontrollable bursts of applause. At length, when that
heart-thrilling scene came on, where Percy Royal-Mast rescues
fifteen oppressed sailors from the watch-house, in the teeth
of a posse of constables, the audience leaped to their feet, overturned
the capstan bars, and to a man hurled their hats on
the stage in a delirium of delight. Ah Jack, that was a ten-stroke
indeed!

The commotion was now terrific; all discipline seemed
gone forever; the Lieutenants ran in among the men, the
Captain darted from his cabin, and the Commodore nervously
questioned the armed sentry at his door as to what the deuce
the people were about. In the midst of all this, the trumpet
of the officer-of-the-deck, commanding the top-gallant sails to
be taken in, was almost completely drowned. A black squall
was coming down on the weather-bow, and the boatswain's
mates bellowed themselves hoarse at the main-hatchway.
There is no knowing what would have ensued, had not the
bass drum suddenly been heard, calling all hands to quarters,
a summons not to be withstood. The sailors pricked their
ears at it, as horses at the sound of a cracking whip, and confusedly
stumbled up the ladders to their stations. The next
moment all was silent but the wind, howling like a thousand
devils in the cordage.

“Stand by to reef all three top-sails!—settle away the halyards!—haul
out—so: make fast!—aloft, top-men! and reef
away!”

Thus, in storm and tempest terminated that day's theatricals.
But the sailors never recovered from the disappointment
of not having the “True Yankee Sailor” sung by the
Irish Captain of the Head.

And here White-Jacket must moralize a bit. The unwonted
spectacle of the row of gun-room officers mingling with
“the people” in applauding a mere seaman like Jack Chase,

filled me at the time with the most pleasurable emotions. It
is a sweet thing, thought I, to see these officers confess a human
brotherhood with us, after all; a sweet thing to mark
their cordial appreciation of the manly merits of my matchless
Jack. Ah! they are noble fellows all round, and I do not
know but I have wronged them sometimes in my thoughts.

Nor was it without similar pleasurable feelings that I witnessed
the temporary rupture of the ship's stern discipline, consequent
upon the tumult of the theatricals. I thought to myself,
this now is as it should be. It is good to shake off, now
and then, this iron yoke round our necks. And after having
once permitted us sailors to be a little noisy, in a harmless
way—somewhat merrily turbulent—the officers can not, with
any good grace, be so excessively stern and unyielding as before.
I began to think a man-of-war a man-of-peace-and-good-will,
after all. But, alas! disappointment came.

Next morning the same old scene was enacted at the gang-way.
And beholding the row of uncompromising-looking
officers there assembled with the Captain, to witness punishment—the
same officers who had been so cheerfully disposed
over night—an old sailor touched my shoulder, and said, “See,
White-Jacket, all round they have shipped their quarter-deck
faces again. But this is the way.”

I afterward learned that this was an old man-of-war's-man's
phrase, expressive of the facility with which a sea-officer falls
back upon all the severity of his dignity, after a temporary
suspension of it.